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Popcorn WebPopcorn Web

Installation

The pw command handles scaffolding, code generation, migrations, and the development server. Install it first. Projects created by pw init pin their Go toolchain, so you do not need to install a separate Go version before creating the project.

Installing pw

Section titled “Installing pw”

Homebrew

Section titled “Homebrew”
Terminal window
brew install shibukawa/tap/pw

The formula installs a prebuilt binary from the tagged release, on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux. Upgrades come with brew upgrade.

Nix

Section titled “Nix”
Terminal window
nix run github:shibukawa/popcornweb#pw -- version

That runs pw without installing anything. To put it on PATH, add the flake’s packages.<system>.pw to your profile or environment, or use the exported overlays.default from a flake of your own.

The derivation builds from source with buildGoModule, so it covers x86_64-linux, aarch64-linux, and aarch64-darwin. Intel macOS is served by the Homebrew formula and the release archives instead — nixpkgs dropped that platform.

The flake also exposes a devShells.default with Go, gopls, and TinyGo, if you want the host toolchain without Devbox.

Release archive

Section titled “Release archive”

Every tag publishes one archive per target plus a checksums.txt, on the releases page. Extraction yields pw directly, with no directory prefix, so verifying the checksum and moving the binary onto your PATH is the whole procedure. Windows is covered here and by no other channel.

Go toolchain

Section titled “Go toolchain”
Terminal window
go install github.com/shibukawa/popcornweb/cmd/pw@latest

This works and stays supported. It is listed last because it needs a Go toolchain that matches the module’s requirement, which is exactly the prerequisite the other three channels remove.

Checking

Section titled “Checking”
Terminal window
pw version
pw 0.1.0 (abc1234, darwin/arm64, go1.26.0)

pw help lists every command:

Usage: pw <command> [arguments]


Commands:
  init      create a project in a new directory
  add       enable a capability in a project that declined it
  new       scaffold a handler or a page beside the ones you have
  generate  write everything a compiler needs, stopping before the compiler
  check     report generated files that are stale or missing
  fmt       format template sources into their canonical form
  i18n      reconcile message catalogs against the templates that use them
  migrate   inspect and apply database migrations
  seed      load seed datasets into the database
  build     run generate and then compile the project
  dev       watch, regenerate, rebuild, and restart
  doctor    report what a named environment will actually run
  version   print the version, revision, and toolchain
  help      print this message

pw command says what each one is for and where it is documented.

The library

Section titled “The library”

Popcorn Web requires Go 1.26 or later.

For a new project, pw init writes a go.mod that already requires the framework; no manual go get is needed. An existing module needs one additional step:

Terminal window
go get github.com/shibukawa/popcornweb

Application code imports the pw package, which is the stable application-facing API:

import "github.com/shibukawa/popcornweb/pw"

Devbox (optional)

Section titled “Devbox (optional)”

Generated projects include a devbox.json that pins Go and a Valkey service. When you use pw init --tailwind, it pins the standalone Tailwind CSS binary as well. Devbox keeps those tools reproducible, but it is optional: if Go is already on PATH, skip devbox shell and run pw dev directly.

Install Devbox from jetify.com/devbox.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”